Federica Pellegrini, Olympic swimmer champion, holding women's 200 meters freestyle world record, freshly retired from competitions, faces the inquietudes of her relationship with water and her biggest challenge: the fear of the open sea. Federica is a celebrity in Italy: world wide record swimmer, you see her on television, as a testimonial of many advertisements. She is called “la Divina” (the Divine), and popularly she is perceived as a super-woman: she is the athlete that made Italy proud. Indeed, her achievements are undeniably outstanding. I wanted to give the audience a different and intimate point of view on her, so I started diving a bit into her interview and found a very interesting point: “I hide my shyness underwater, yet I fear the open sea: I cannot swim where I cannot see.” And I suddenly realized that that was a starting point: showing her fear and inquietude, and breaking the invincible image we have of her, to make her a real role model for the public: as humans, we share fears, we share conflicts. We are imperfect and fragile.

Giada Bossi is an Italian director based in Milan. Born in 1993 in the Lake District in Northern Italy, she grew up in the suburbs attending art school. After two years of nomadism around Europe, she went back to Milan to study filmmaking, screenwriting, and acting, and she started directing commercials and music videos. Her short film CREATURA (2021) has been selected at Kort Film Festival Leuven and labelled as Short Market Pic in Clermont Ferrand library. Nominated for “best new director” at UKMVA 2022. Shortlisted at Cannes Young Director Awards 2023 with two projects. YG21, 2023 winner.